Friday Notes & Random BC11 Odd Couple Thoughts

Today at 2PM Churchill Downs begins Breeders' Cup weekend, one of a handful of successful handle and promotional weeks in the sport. It's also an amazingly difficult mind exercise for punters. The fields are deep, almost every horse is coming into it appearing fit and sound, and there is perceived value everywhere. If anything, bankroll management trumps handicapping on days like this.

I have enjoyed this card(s) since inception, when I was a kid in Northern Ontario, watching racing in So Cal, when it was cold outside. I have always loved the concept. I have some thoughts below on who I may like or not like, but since there are hundreds such places on the interweb to read those, I left that to the end of the post so it is easily skippable.

Today's News/Thoughts

Horse racing bets on exchange wagering via the Sac Bee. In Cali one might expect this to end up in a huge fight, with a huge mess that someone is going to have to clean up.

Sports betting coming to Canada? Woodbine sure hopes so.

Why is Uncle Mo the morning line fave, many are asking? He is, because he is. He is 4-1 at Betfair in a sub par field.

Cangamble lists some free stuff for the Breeders' Cup (among others).

If Blame didn't retire after his gruelling 12 start career, what's the over/under on his odds for this Classic? I am thinking 4-5.

Putthebabiesdown is 60-1 currently at betfair. There's no story there. I just love saying Putthebabiesdown.

A little bird told me purses at Santa Anita this meet are up about 3%, not the 20% or more that the takeout increase promised. If true, it proves that when handle goes down like it has, purses can not go up in the logn run, no matter how much spin or creative accounting is used. It's just math, and that works in most of the world (Greece excluded).

I am having a Breeders Cup Party today and another one tomorrow. So far it's me and the dog and that's going to be it. Do I have no friends, or do people not like horse racing? Leaning the former.

Today's menu for the party after a meeting is finalized: Chips, dip, wings, pizza and bones.

I had a super fun time last night on Google+ with a video handicapping meet up with five other handicappers. What a great time. That's a great service.

@sidfernando made a crack this morning on twitter about The Odd Couple remake; one starring Herman Cain and Rick Perry. It made me think of my favorite exchange in the history of that series (paraphrasing, because my memory is not what it used to be):

Oscar (teaching Felix how to bet): You can bet win place or show. If you bet win and the horse wins, you win. If you bet place and the horse comes in the top two you win. If you bet show, and the horse comes in the top three, you win.

Felix: That doesn't sound right.

Oscar: What do you mean?

Felix: Are you telling me that if you bet show, all you have to do is pick a horse to come in the top three in this five horse field, and you win?

Oscar: Ya.

Felix: How do you lose so much money?

Gambling always sounds so much easier in theory than practice.

Some random BC thoughts:

Secret Circle kicks it off. Key or don't key? I am on the fence. Trinniberg, Seeker, Sum of Parts are others I am looking at. Secret Circle is even money and getting hammered at betfair.

Software players are all over Stopshoppingmaria in the Juvy Fillies Turf and I think she may be some value, despite that. The chalk looks formidable.

Stacelita is taking money, and rightfully so off her last monster effort and resume. I was alive to an "all" in that leg of the pick 4 (with some paying monster prices) and she never looked interested, was off in the middle of the track, but still won easily, killing my payoff. Aruna is one I might go off the board to there for a shot. Misty for Me might be overlooked.

The Distaff looks like a slam dunk off the huge fig Plum Pretty ran in her last, but what about that fig? If she regresses off the top, it looks completely wide open. Early on in my capping I found her a decent key horse, but now I am not sure. She is currently about 4-1 at betfair.

Tomorrow is super interesting. In the classic, each time I handicap the race and come to Uncle Mo, I can't help thinking Quality Road.

Golidkova, key or fade? Leaning the former.

Union Rags, key or fade? Because of his professionalism, I am leaning key. Hansen has me thinking, as does the rail horse at a bomb price.

I don't like Uncle Mo or Havre De Grace in the Classic (as they run one-two!), and I'm going to take a shot in exotics, pitching them both out of the top two. I am looking at a Flat Out-Game On Dude-Rattlesnake Bridge- To Honor and Serve box.

My biggest fade for the day is Euroears. So he'll win.

My best long one to play, that I really like, is Jersey Town. I think his last was a clunker, he'll be better and he likes the distance. He's 24-1 at betfair, and that's too much for me.

Rapport - for some reason - in the Turf Sprint is a horse I want to use on the bottom of tickets at a huge  price.

I like Majestic City and don't mind the ultra-bomb Excaper to hit the top four somewhere.

After spending too much time on the Marathon, I settled on Cease.

Good luck everyone and enjoy the weekend!

Rest in Peace

If the love of the sport of harness racing had a scorecard, we'd have a winner. Rest in Peace.

More Data Woes

We've spoken about it several times here before, and I am sure you've seen it elsewhere - the debate about data. Where major league sports have embraced what data can do to grow their sports' - fantasy comes to mind - we seem to constantly misstep in racing. And it looks like we have another example.

This was tweeted out this evening:

A few years ago I sat on a panel at a wagering conference where the topic was "Wagering in the 21st Century". Beside me was a fellow named Dave Vicary, who was a retired programmer, and a massive fan of the sport. His presentation focused on getting easy to use, cutting edge information into the hands of fans to make the game more enjoyable, and winnable, among other things.

Dave was working on a program that used artificial intelligence (with computers running 24 hours a day) that he programmed to scrape factors in the past performances that correlated to a better odds line. His lines were ROI positive, and had factors that people understand, in a very hard to understand game.

He had several other ideas too, like being able to highlight horses on video through a user experience.

In general, Dave was an innovator and someone we want in our sport.

Because this venture of his needed data, he received it from Standardbred Canada. Tracks like Sudbury Downs or Woodstock Raceway, with handles around $7000 would be carried by his software and promoted by him, through his website. It seemed like a mutually beneficial relationship - a data provider and industry group working together with an innovator to grow the wagering base in Canada. After all, SC's mission statement says they are there to "promote harness racing in Canada and beyond". A year or two ago, he went live.

Dave was not going to get rich selling his printouts - that's just silly - especially for tracks with $7,000 of nightly handle. In fact, he was giving it out for free of late. In addition, no developer is going to spend thousands of hours programming for a market that is small like Canadian harness racing is (just ask app creators what they program for, iPad's or Playbook's), because they would be working for below sweat shop wages. Dave's work filled a void that would likely never be filled by anyone and possibly open up harness racing to a younger, tech savvy audience. The cost to our sport? A data stream that likely is gathering dust, or being used as a paper weight.

It seemed like a win-win, and it also seemed to honor Standardbred Canada's mission statement quite well; it's how things are supposed to work in a niche sport.

But apparently not. Right now it appears Dave's data has been shut off (including the personal account he paid for, and had been using to bet into the pools himself, providing much-needed liquidity to this Province's small harness tracks). Why, I do not know, but I expect they wanted money or a slice of his (probable) miniscule revenues.

It is surely disappointing, but unfortunately not unexpected in our industry. We've seen this played out, oh so many times and it is probably one of the reasons the handle clock on the SC homepage has been red each year since about 2001.